Texas Discussion Thread

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oldmanclippy
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Re: Texas Discussion Thread

#3391 Post by oldmanclippy » 23 May 2022 19:13

I still maintain that one of the most scenic drives I've ever done was driving west on I-94 between Bismarck and Dickinson during sunset. The undulating hills and buttes start to cast incredible shadows, the sun lights everything in a sublime orange/red, and it all combines to look like an impressionist painting. Absolutely breathtaking, and if the North Dakota expansion manages to capture even a fraction of that feeling then I think it could really surprise people.

Texas should bring that in spades, especially on US-90. That might be my most anticipated road. I am a big city buff in ATS and I also like the charm of small towns, but the reason I fell in love with the game was being able to drive on wide open roads with civilization far away on either side of me, just enjoying the sun setting over the land around me. Texas will be the last of that at that scale until the northern Great Plains states. And even they can't come close to the sheer mileage of middle-of-nowhere roads in Texas.
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Re: Texas Discussion Thread

#3392 Post by Optional Features » 23 May 2022 19:17

oldmanclippy wrote: 23 May 2022 19:09 I'm not saying they shouldn't make more of these roads driveable and more of these businesses functional, but testing is a massive part of software development, and the more you develop, the more you test. And in video games, adding more stuff doesn't necessarily result in a linear increase in test load, often times it's exponential to some effect. So what looks like 20% more roads in a city might lead to 30% more testing required, etc. Again I'm not saying they shouldn't increase density in this way, but this is a better reason why they wouldn't besides performance concerns.

I still think that when SCS brings on newbies, they should have them add some businesses, roads, etc to existing areas. Even just one road as a project (like what they did with Iberia), or maybe 1 or 2 cities enhanced with more prefabs or more unlocked roads, would really add up over time.
Or sell them as a dlc. I would pay to be able to use the whole map I already bought once lol.

The number and intensity of barricade use is just breathtaking. Yesterday, I deleted a barricade on a business on a closed road. Someone took the time to visually block a business I could never access due to XXX barriers.
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Re: Texas Discussion Thread

#3393 Post by supersobes » 23 May 2022 19:23

oldmanclippy wrote: 23 May 2022 19:13 I still maintain that one of the most scenic drives I've ever done was driving west on I-94 between Bismarck and Dickinson during sunset [...] if the North Dakota expansion manages to capture even a fraction of that feeling then I think it could really surprise people.
Oh, definitely. I really love the scenery of the Great Plains and the Midwest. I know that a lot of people are dreading that region in ATS because it's often seen as boring, but I think if SCS pulls it off right, it could possibly end up looking even better than the mountains, deserts, and forests that we already have in ATS. SCS has already touched this region in eastern Colorado in ATS, and it looks so good and is a really fun drive. Parts of Texas and Montana will also touch this region, so I look forward to seeing what SCS does with it. After all the curvy roads through the Rocky Mountains that ATS has, some more straight roads would be very welcome!
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Re: Texas Discussion Thread

#3394 Post by VTXcnME » 23 May 2022 19:36

supersobes wrote: 23 May 2022 18:40 The purpose of such roads is simply visual scenery that can be seen from the roads that the player is actually meant to be driving. In the screenshots above, you can see the scenery around those roads is noticeably lower quality because it's only meant to be viewed from a distance. But if SCS was to add the same details to that area that they add near roads that you can drive, it would absolutely destroy the framerate in that area of the map. They wouldn't just get rid of the barriers and open the road to players. SCS quality standards are much higher than that.
Maybe some are like that. There's a few "scenery roads" that connect between drivable roads. Some a couple blocks long, some longer. Those are the ones I'm talking about.

I'm sure there are some scenery roads (like off US50/I-70 in Utah headed toward Moab) that are lower resolution.... but some of them, especially *in* town, feels like a miss on some drivable roads with more depots and company locations.

And to answer @xXCARL1992Xx , no..... there don't need to be voids all the places we cant' drive, and I think you've missed the point of the discussion.
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Re: Texas Discussion Thread

#3395 Post by Optional Features » 23 May 2022 19:37

I think the midwest could be amazing, but not if SCS fills it with constant urbanization. Wyoming concerns me as a preview of the future. That's a six hour drive across a lot of nothing condensed to 25 minutes of constant cities and settlements.
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Re: Texas Discussion Thread

#3396 Post by Shiva » 23 May 2022 20:43

Would it have been better to skip 1 or more of Evanston, Rock Springs, Rawlins or Laramie?
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Re: Texas Discussion Thread

#3397 Post by SouthernMan » 23 May 2022 21:17

I would really like SCS scenarios to look like thi, but... the map scale doesn't really help at all (edited by me in the map editor):

[ external image ]
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Re: Texas Discussion Thread

#3398 Post by Optional Features » 23 May 2022 22:29

Shiva wrote: 23 May 2022 20:43 Would it have been better to skip 1 or more of Evanston, Rock Springs, Rawlins or Laramie?
Not sure tbh: it just didn't feel like Wyoming to me. And I'm sure Texas will feel similarly urban.

@SouthernMan Wide open spaces. So lacking, and so needed.
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Re: Texas Discussion Thread

#3399 Post by VTXcnME » 23 May 2022 22:42

seriousmods wrote: 23 May 2022 19:37 I think the midwest could be amazing, but not if SCS fills it with constant urbanization. Wyoming concerns me as a preview of the future. That's a six hour drive across a lot of nothing condensed to 25 minutes of constant cities and settlements.
Agree.

And not to bring the scale conversation here... but that's kind of the problem at 1:20 scale.... the west should feel big. Huge. Wyoming should feel big when you drive across it. Texas should feel huge. Like, large distances between cities/urbanization. I'm not saying I want to drive for 45 minutes on vacant plains/prairie but when you just get out into wide open spaces and settle in only to find you're at the next city and urban center, it's packed tight. It feels over urbanized at the current scale. and it's not like SCS is putting 50 towns in each state. With the cities Wyoming included, it should still feel like wide open plains and prairies. It doesn't have that feel to me. Parts of Colorado, should feel similar and don't. Mountain passes are over in 5 minutes if you go the speed limit or less if you're moving at all faster and empty.

Admittedly I've spent little time in Texas aside from traveling the I-40 corridor. Even the top of Texas takes a good 2.5hrs to cross. With the exception of Amarillo, it's mostly farm land (as memory serves). Now, I have no interest in driving 2 and half hours across prairies and farms, but it should feel like a haul and it should feel like it's a long open expanse of space. Not a constant string of urbanization covered in 20 minutes.
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Re: Texas Discussion Thread

#3400 Post by supersobes » 23 May 2022 22:47

VTXcnME wrote: 23 May 2022 19:36 Maybe some are like that. There's a few "scenery roads" that connect between drivable roads. Some a couple blocks long, some longer. Those are the ones I'm talking about.
I'm sure there are some scenery roads (like off US50/I-70 in Utah headed toward Moab) that are lower resolution.... but some of them, especially *in* town, feels like a miss on some drivable roads with more depots and company locations.
Can you point me to some examples? The vast majority of non-drivable roads in this game that I've looked at, including ones in cities and towns, are low detail and would not live up to the standards of the actually drivable roads.
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